Water the essence of life, the centerpiece of societies structure, and a giant commodity readily to be sold. In America and many other nations around the world, water flows freely from the tap with little effort or consideration. It sits on shelves with fancy labels, with scenic views of nature, using clever verbiage to sell an idea. I was born and raised in the city of Rancho Cucamonga, here I always knew water played a big role in the cities development, but I never knew how deep it went until recently. Due to agriculture, community development, and years of sever drought, the water system flourished into a multi-dimensional network; were water was being imported, pumped from groundwater, and brought in from local canyons and tunnels. According to Rancho Cucamonga’s 2010 water quality report, my city was apart of the State Water Project; the water is brought down from Northern California’s Delta at Oroville Dam through the San Joaquin Valley. It’s also possible that we are getting water from Oregon and Arizona, but I wasn’t able to confirm this. In addition to the imported water, 49% is from ground water from the Cucamonga and Chino Basin Aquifers. And the final 8% comes from canyons that I grew up hiking and playing in, the Cucamonga Canyon, Deer Canyon, East Etiwanda Canyon, and a few tunnels though the San Gabriel Mountains.
When I looked into the safety of our drinking water, I found that the sources are pretty vulnerable to contamination ranging from: microbial, inorganic and organic chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and radioactive material. So, basically every stage the water flows the water has the potential to become contaminated naturally and unnaturally, but luckily our water district is very keen on our water quality before, during, and after treatment. To keep to their standard, Cucamonga Valley Water collects and analyzes samples of water every four hours, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week. According to the quality report, “In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) prescribe regulations that limit the amount of certain contaminants in water provided by public water systems…” They have set limits on the contamination levels and amount of disinfectants, and are constantly monitoring for healthy standards, and by what I could tell from the report the water is far below the given standard.
In the United States annually, Americans Drink 8.6 billion gallons of bottled water. Almost everywhere you go you could find this commodity. In the 1970’s many companies began to sell the idea of tap water. Many people buy bottled water assuming that it is cleaner and comes from fresh sources, but the reality of it is that over 1/3 of it is just filtered tap water. When it comes to bottled water the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees bottled water products and the processing plants. The regulations and standards for bottled water are far different from tap water. FDA has set Current Good Manufacturing Practices to set standards for bottled water. According to the FDA website this requires bottled water companies to:
• Process, bottle, hold and transport bottled water under sanitary conditions.
• Protect water sources from bacteria, chemicals and other contaminants.
• Use quality control processes to ensure the bacteriological and chemical safety of the water.
• Sample and test both source water and the final product for contaminants.
The FDA is supposed to regulate of bottled water products and its process according to the food safety program. When FDA inspects, they are to verify if the product are coming from authorizing sources, inspect the washing and sanitizing procedures, inspect bottling operations, and if the companies are testing their water sources and product for contaminates. It feels like the majority of the regulation and testing of quality is left to FDA and in the good faith of companies; the FDA doesn’t have the capacity to keep an eye on each and every single bottle effectively and honestly to healthy standards.
So, the reality of it is that bottled water is less regulated compared to tap water. Even though FDA standards try to reflect EPA standards, the FDA is unable to make sure that all companies are making the standard. In addition, the FDA's standards are based on the premise that bottled water is not a potential risk to public health, while EPA’s are. In an independent study of bottled water conducted by the Environmental Working Group, “…found that 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand.” So the image that bottle companies try to sell us of mountain springs and of fresh clean sources, is not always up to par on quality and safety.
Bottle water might seem convenient, but another draw back is the pollution from the bottle waste. Only 1 in 5 bottles are recycled and it contributes to 3 billion pounds of waste, cost thousands of times more and water rights being taken away from the public. Bottled water is in essence just an idea that is being sold to us, and that is mostly unregulated, and is not always meeting always safety standards. While our tap is being highly regulated, yet underrated and could save us from the byproducts of production.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/bottled/bottled-water-bad-for-people-and-the-environment/
http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/
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